Instead of doing anything productive with my time, here I am theorizing who out of the three (Beatrix/Steiner/Freya) gets what Knight and-or-Sword themed pokemon like some kind of bizarre paternity case.
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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Instead of doing anything productive with my time, here I am theorizing who out of the three (Beatrix/Steiner/Freya) gets what Knight and-or-Sword themed pokemon like some kind of bizarre paternity case.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Quina would have a multitype team, both for theming and to fit how Blue Mages do a bit of everything.
My guess: Lickylicky, Garganacl, Arboliva, Chansey, Fidough, Alcremie. A Lickylicky for the kinship and the rest are pokemon who actively generate food that can be constantly harvested without killing them. Battles when you make eye contact in game but narratively clearly most of the team is clearly there to provide food/ingredients rather than for combat.
The other characters are tougher to build teams for, although Zidane would probably have a Thievul, Steiner an Aegislash, and Dagger a Gardevoir.
My guess: Lickylicky, Garganacl, Arboliva, Chansey, Fidough, Alcremie. A Lickylicky for the kinship and the rest are pokemon who actively generate food that can be constantly harvested without killing them. Battles when you make eye contact in game but narratively clearly most of the team is clearly there to provide food/ingredients rather than for combat.
The other characters are tougher to build teams for, although Zidane would probably have a Thievul, Steiner an Aegislash, and Dagger a Gardevoir.
Entropy Judge
Recurring Bouts of Misanthropy
Not standing close enough to the Firaga.
evil, having style, and evil
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
The way it's written, viz おみこし舟, would make the average reader assume it's the kun-yomi "fune" reading. It just makes sense, especially given it's the one kanji in the whole phrase.
Using the on-yomi "shuu" reading would weird, but the whole situation is already weird, so I can't argue against the Japanese players who came up with that fanon. It makes as much sense as anything in the game itself.
I wasn't sure whether this was significant, but there's something in the dialogue I was curious about:
At the teashop, we can find two fountains, and each time we drink in one, the tea drinkers share a story, first about a fountain of youth then about a fountain of happiness, with each time another character responding that we shouldn't trust such tall tales or throw away our money.
Barbara Gibgab: "By the way, I hear in the South Continent, there's a story about a fountain which will give you happiness if you throw a coin in."
The English translation appears to just put it as "in the south" (or "the sooth", as the accent goes), but in Japanese it's clearly 南の大陸 "minami no tairiku" for both the alleged fountains of youth and happiness. In other words, to the people of the "Outer Continent", the Mist Continent is "the Southern Continent".
Which makes sense given what we see on the world map. I wasn't sure at first because I forgot if we've seen the "fountain of youth" (more specifically, "a fountain that will give strength and energy just by drinking its waters"), but it's only now that I realize we've seen the "fountain of happiness": it's the fountain in Treno. We threw in money, and got the happiness of a Stellazio coin.
Anyway, this does add to the hypothesis that there is some information being passed from Mist Continent to Outer Continent, even if it doesn't seem like the other way around happens. Kuja is the only one who seems to be commuting frequently, and I don't think the dwarves know who he is, so the Black Mages are probably the source of this information. Which again raises the question of how these Black Mages knew, since I don't think they've been deployed to Treno before, but maybe they heard gossip and chatter from Alexandrians.
Yeah, eventually it all just turns into "why does the Zemzelett even have a Zuu card", and then it become subsumed into the eternal question of why random overworld critters drop gil and Hi-Potions. It's just how RPGs work.
It does make for an amusing mental image when the Black Mage villagers are clearly terrified of Zidane visiting their shop, but suddenly change moods and go "oh, a card game? Certainly!" when prompted.
Tales skits do have the same problem as FFIX's ATEs, in that they're often missable based on obscure triggers. They also range from "why did this have to be a skit, it's pointless" to "why did this have to be a skit, it's super important", like ATEs.
Honestly I don't know of any examples which allow for something like skits or ATEs, without making them missable either through inadvertent plot progression, or just making the triggers obscure to sell guides.
I do agree the Tales skits have the advantage of not needing full movement of character models. Most of the time it's just static anime artwork that changes expressions and poses as needed, and as economically as they can. Characters have their portraits move on and off screen to signify their movement through the scene.
It does have the disadvantage of not really allowing for "generic" NPCs to participate, especially if these NPCs are intended to be slightly less generic, eg the "Red Mage Lady" or the Cleyra inhabitants. Having a few "generic NPC" portraits would lose some of that flavour.
There were a few enemy types in the overworld who do attempt to steal the party's items, and then Escape the battle. The most direct way of preventing that is to kill them first, which does mean Zidane and co. have murdered humanoid-shaped creatures who tried to rob them. I remember this because I had an annoying time trying to chip away at their fragile HP to let Quina eat them for Blue Magic, while also not letting them run away.
It's partly a question of what constitutes personhood in the setting of FFIX, considering goblins and goblinoids, and also partly a question of how diegetic random overworld encounters are. There is a lot of commentary about Black Mage No. 288 acknowledging how Vivi has likely seen far more death than anyone else in the Black Mage Village, while also tactfully sidestepping how Vivi has likely caused more death than anyone else in the Black Mage Village just from grinding out Ability Points or something.
Especially since the "mikoshi" of the Kirkboat doesn't quite fit with the strict definition of a mikoshi. The dwarves all call it a mikoshi, but it's different in ways specific to the needs of FFIX (or just the background worldbuilding around Conde Petie).
For example, the steps leading to and on top of the mikoshi. Strictly speaking, no human is allowed in the mikoshi, because it's supposed to be a portable housing for the god of a given shrine. And because it's intended to resemble a house, most mikoshi are house-shaped, or at least shrine-shaped for "god's house". Being shaped like a boat is unusual, but also plausible in the sense of "maybe some small obscure village near the sea might have their own traditions that include a boat-shaped mikoshi".
So the "boat" part of the description is meaningful, because it's a mikoshi shaped like a boat. The dwarf uses both "mikoshi" and "boat" to name it, but doesn't know what "boat" means by itself, so I'm not sure they would know what "mikoshi" means either.
Quina copies other people's attacks, so they're kind of like a Smeargle with a different art form (cooking). A regional variety. Their Pokedex entries end with lines like, "This Pokemon is actively trying to eat your Fletchling," and then you look up and see Quina smiling innocently, five feet from your Fletchling.
There's no honour amongst thieves. Alternatively, Zidane is a hypocrite. Alternatively alternatively, Zidane would be entirely okay with the people he robs attempting to end his life for it.
Thank you, belatedly. This is, indeed, something I think about a lot and also something that probably contributed to this game sticking out in my memory among Final Fantasy moments.
The Stockpile/Spit Up/Swallow as well as Stuff Cheeks are all Normal-type moves, which go along with Quina being a Normal-type trainer. Belch and Gastro Acid are all Poison-type moves, as well as the Gulpin line, so that might be an alternative or additional type.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Yeah, that would be out of character for him; although he'd likely have no scruples in robbing the thief blind right back.
Also, I wanted to note that, in truth, we haven't really seen a lot of fighting bandits at all in the Playstation set of games, have we? Cloud's human enemies are all either Shinra soldiers or Yuffie (and Yuffie doesn't count, he doesn't kill her, he adopts her), Squall in theory could have fought other people but in practice only crossed swords with Galbadian soldiers (and Laguna only fought the robotic Esthar ones on-screen), and Zidane has only fought Alexandrian troops, be they leotard swordswomen or black mages. None of the three games has human bandits to fight, in fact, outside of goblins and goblin-like creature like the Vices, which really shouldn't count.
That's a pretty big change from the pre-PSX era that went completely unremarked, isn't it? FFVI had Zozo, FFV has you fighting Faris' crew of pirates, and FFIV starts you off killing civilian, but I don't think there's any of that taking place from FFVII onwards (FFT obviously excluded), with the protagonists only ever killing other humans if those humans are part of an invading enemy army. Did we miss a tone shift from "fight the poor" to "fight The Man" in the series?
Honestly, they just should have bitten the bullet and acknowledged from the start that Normal was for weird stuff, renamed it to the "Blank" type, and moved stuff like Tauros, Snorlax, Meowth and Raticate to other types while stripping the type from the birds, leaving only things like Ditto and Porygon as belonging to the "Blank" type. It would have made things a lot more logical.
Quina should likely have the normal types that can change powers, like Ditto and Smeargle, but it seems obvious that they'd choose food-pokemon if they could. Although Quina being a lickitung, that is, a talking pokemon like Team Rocket's Meowth, wouldn't be out of place.
Yeah, the Vice are really annoying to eat, especially because Vanish is a very rare Blue Spells otherwise. However, they cannot be people, since Quina has a very strictly "no cannibal" policy. I think killing thieving monsters is fine, and the difference between "humanoid-looking" and "actual people" isn't just a matter of looks - something can look human but not be one, while something can look inhuman but be a person nonetheless. Probably why Quan initially thought Vivi wasn't a person, because there are monsters around that look like people, but actually aren't.
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Not to be the "guy obsessed with production design art" again, but the concept art for the ff9 Vice actually has some Monster-Manual level lore on the species about their biology, language and culture.... all in Japanese of course.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There's paratext and I can't even read it???Not to be the "guy obsessed with production design art" again, but the concept art for the ff9 Vice actually has some Monster-Manual level lore on the species about their biology, language and culture.... all in Japanese of course.
Even better, there's entries for some other monsters we've seen (and a few we haven't)
I'm not gonna say that "reading the design notes in artbooks" is my main reason for trying to learn Japanese. But it's up there.
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- Pronouns
- She/They
Wait hang on the sand golem heart is just a little dude? A little guy hanging out? Oh that's perfect.
Also in love with measuring every monster in Zidanes.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
...RubberBandMan said:
It occurs to me that, given Puck, maybe it's not a coincidence that the closest companion we know of him having during that time is Burmecian.
Most people: "Wow, it's really concerning that this kid is wandering around and going into really dangerous situations, and doing crime, all by himself; maybe we should try and do something about -- aaaand he's gone."
Freya of Burmecia: "Ah, a nice reminder of home and the intrepid spirit of youth so stifled in other countries!"
...
And now I'm wondering what Burmecians would think of the Pokemon-world practice of happily pushing children out into the world to wander the wilderness and assemble collections of extremely dangerous creatures to fight at their command.
Or it might be something like the marshes indeed allowing one to freely move through the Marsh between one and another without bothering about the mundane space between... if one has spent sixty years continuously honing one's body and mind in the Way of the Qu, or something like that.Wiadi said:
[looks at profile picture]StormyEyed said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3y9TEQzjNc
...Though now I'm wondering just how much of an impression it made on me. Less of a conscious one, sounds like, but, hm. It seems highly plausible that there wasn't no significant impression.
Oh, hah, looks like we were thinking along the same lines right down to making the jump to Pokemon.Indivisible said:
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Reminds me of how Pokémon (speaking of which) uses the Trainer for height comparisons.
To go back to this, I'm wondering how much of the darkness in Bluth's films was due to him growing up Mormon?
E.g. In Bluth's prime, Mormon temple ceremonies used to include a suicide pact where you promised to slice yourself up if you revealed any secrets (my source starting around 59:00 here). Yeah, that shit messes with you
I enjoy the tidbit that a Zidane is exactly the size of a goblin.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Going by the side view I think Zidane is taller than the goblin proper, it's just that the goblin wears a tall hat.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Counterpoint, maybe goblin heads just look like that.
somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
Tifa's Final Fantasy VII Lockhart's Final Fantasy commander card just got leaked!
Tifa's using her limit break to punch her foes into oblivion with a series of ever stronger attacks. Nice flavor win!
Looks nice, right? Now take a second look and see that it says "combat damage to a player", not "combat damage to one or more players" or "combat damage to a player [...] do this only once each turn." Tifa's extra combat ability triggers each time an eligible creature hits your opponent during your first combat. Assuming a typical pod of four players, that's three extra combats a turn even before we get into giving your creatures double strike... and if you have enough damage on the board to trigger that sort of damage, even just one extra combat is almost always going to lead to someone dying.
Also, she's only four mana.
Does Tifa inspire joy? I think she's a fairly good new finisher for big stompy decks in her color identity, like dinosaurs or +1/+1 counters, though that seven power is harder to reach than it seems. As a commander herself... she just doesn't really inspire joy for me. Tifa is a payoff for once you've gotten a good board, but she's somewhat generic (any big stompy strategy) and she doesn't really do anything to help you get to that good board. Also, she doesn't draw cards, and I am addicted to card draw.
But most importantly of all, a green/white/red Tifa finally confirms what we all knew in our hearts...
She's Italian.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3RToBymttA&ab_channel=VocalNationalAnthems
Article:
Tifa, Martial Artist
1RGW
Legendary Creature - Human Monk
Melee (Whenever this creature attacks, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each opponent you attacked this combat.)
Whenever one or more creatures you control with power 7 or greater deal combat damage to a player, untap all creatures you control. IF it's the first combat phase of your turn, there is an additional combat phase after this phase.
4/4
Tifa's using her limit break to punch her foes into oblivion with a series of ever stronger attacks. Nice flavor win!
Looks nice, right? Now take a second look and see that it says "combat damage to a player", not "combat damage to one or more players" or "combat damage to a player [...] do this only once each turn." Tifa's extra combat ability triggers each time an eligible creature hits your opponent during your first combat. Assuming a typical pod of four players, that's three extra combats a turn even before we get into giving your creatures double strike... and if you have enough damage on the board to trigger that sort of damage, even just one extra combat is almost always going to lead to someone dying.
Also, she's only four mana.
Does Tifa inspire joy? I think she's a fairly good new finisher for big stompy decks in her color identity, like dinosaurs or +1/+1 counters, though that seven power is harder to reach than it seems. As a commander herself... she just doesn't really inspire joy for me. Tifa is a payoff for once you've gotten a good board, but she's somewhat generic (any big stompy strategy) and she doesn't really do anything to help you get to that good board. Also, she doesn't draw cards, and I am addicted to card draw.
But most importantly of all, a green/white/red Tifa finally confirms what we all knew in our hearts...
She's Italian.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3RToBymttA&ab_channel=VocalNationalAnthems
- Location
- USA
An Italian girl who, according to Omicron, is a complete Texas-phile. I can honestly admit that never would have been my impression of her from the original VII game. Not the Italian part, anyway.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
...I mean, I guess Spaghetti Westerns are a thing...
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
thinking about this post once again as it's Easter and I am typing out an update featuring our meeting with the Dwarf Pope, take a break and refresh my news tab
this was almost how I learned of the news after waking up. discord shitposting was a few minutes earlier but still, imagine